size matters Notes on the Triumph of Feminist Art by daniel belasco Hannah Wilke, “Venus Pareve,” 1982–84 he jewish museum has focused its collection list goes on and on. And there are the notable Israelis Michal of contemporary art since the 1980s on works with Heiman, Hila Lulu Lin, Sigalit Landau, Nurit David, Deganit strong themes of social consciousness: race, anti- Berest, among others. It’s not surprising that such a large col- Semitism, assimilation, identity, sexuality, and fam- lection of feminist artworks would live at The Jewish Museum, ily. Within the collection, there is a strong grouping since so many of the pioneers of feminist art, theory and activism of well over 100 works that address critically the situation of in the U.S. and abroad have been Jewish. Twomen in Judaism and Jewish culture and history. Their cre- Though some of these treasures have been in its collection ators occupy a veritable canon of American Jewish feminist art: for decades, Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism is the first Eleanor Antin, Martha Rosler, Hannah Wilke, Nancy Spero, exhibition at The Jewish Museum to address directly the influ- Joyce Kozloff, Miriam Schapiro, Eva Hesse, Helène Aylon, ence of feminism on visual art, and the influence of Jewish culture Deborah Kass, Nan Goldin, Mierle Laderman Ukeles; the on both. The show consists of 33 works, 23 of which are in the 24 LILITH • Fall 2010 Dana Schutz, “Devourer,” 2004 www.Lilith.org • LILITH 25 collection of The Jewish Museum, seven of them acquired in the the success of the feminist interventions into art since the 1960s. The last three years. What was behind the choices for the exhibition? show is, in my mind, an expression of the triumph of feminist art. First, I selected pieces with maximum visual impact, includ- Over the decades it has successfully brought the revolution home, ing large-scale pieces. Size matters. It is important to show the effecting its transformation not only in the realm of new media and ambition and passion of the artists in the size of their works, and performance art, but in the very center of Western art: oil painting. the forcefulness by which they act upon the viewer. I wanted Now that we are in the post-postmodernist moment which an abstract Judy Chicago painting (see p. 29) that, at eight has seen a revival of interest in painting and abstraction, we feet square, would knock people’s socks off, even as the blurred can see that in fact it was feminism that breathed life back into grid rendered with glossy sprays of acrylic paint suggests intro- painting when it was declared dead in the 1970s. Indeed, there spection. The show’s large works by Ida Applebroog, Miriam is an inherent tension in feminism between the need to establish Schapiro, Nancy Spero, Melissa Meyer, Deborah Kass, and Rosalyn Drexler show feminist art as a muscular, assertive visual aesthetic, even when the media include textiles and collage. Most of the works in Shifting the Gaze are not easily digestible. Many are either fully abstract, or take familiar symbols and materials and subject them to an aesthetic process that moves them several degrees away from their familiar settings in daily life or consciousness. The works may be more familiar because they are paintings, and painting is the conventional medium of Art. But the overall effect is to transmit visual, non-verbal information to the viewer. The works in this show play on our emotions. They make our hearts race, or slow them down. Make our eyes dilate, or our blood boil. Or maybe send us running out the door. More often than not, the works are attacking or critiquing art itself. And there has been a great body of thought that the true feminist revolu- tion must entail the invention, proliferation, and mainstreaming of entirely new feminist aes- thetic forms and social structures. This includes Nancy Spero, “Masha Bruskina,” 1995 the elevations of “women’s art” (needlework, collage, ceramics) to equal status with painting and sculpture, strong women-centered institutions, and the need for women the development of groups and institutions to support profes- to go forth and reform the man-centered institutions. Like the sionalization, historical research to inspire new woman-centered feminist revolution in Judaism itself, this exhibition attempts to genealogies of art, and the dismantling of the so-called “male acknowledge both trajectories, showcasing artists who have built gaze” that rendered woman as sexual object, not thinking subject. strong women-centered practices and also point out the way that In fact it was feminism that breathed life back into painting when it was declared dead in the 1970s. For feminist artists to pick up the brush and confront the empty feminist aesthetics have affected the artistic mainstream. canvas — especially in the 1970s, when painting was declared dead by It was essential to include men in the show. Men had a per- most of the leading (male) critics and artists, rejecting it as bourgeois sonal stake in the rejection of the macho myth and masculine and commodified — was itself a great act of violation, of going against aggression. Shifting the Gaze is not the first feminist-oriented the grain and maintaining the personal struggle to create meaning exhibition to include men, but it certainly is the first in a Jewish with the stubborn method of applying paint to canvas. As one artist context, especially important because of the feminist tendency told me, in painting, nothing is hidden, everything is revealed, and to assail the patriarchal roots and liturgy of Judaism and the the medium is entirely unforgiving. I find this a heroic act, the simple traditional Jewish social structure. decision to make meaning out of blankness. Shifting the Gaze, by Painters Leon Golub, Robert Kushner, and Cary Leibowitz highlighting painting, especially large-scale painting, aims to affirm are not feminists per se: they did not join any groups, or sub- 26 LILITH • Fall 2010 scribe to any theories. They were fellow-travelers in the struggle against militarism and patriarchy. And they found feminism to be a fertile, vital source of ideas and new forms they could adapt to their own ends to contin- ue their own struggles against stereotypical masculinity. I felt that for an exhibition to argue about the “triumph” of feminism in art, to only present works by women would undermine the point by showing its effect on half the art world. But to include men, even just three, shows the wider influence of feminist ideas, and their effect on the work of the other half as well. Feminism and the lens of gender have for me been the most tempting, and effective, intellectual means to evaluate the relative merit and value of cultural produc- tion. Feminism’s ethical standards, risk taking, and uto- pian visions all hold great appeal to me, and, feminists are my personal heroes. My moral compass is set with feminism as true north, guiding me through my aca- demic work as an art historian and my personal life as a man, as a husband, as a father. I know I’m not the only Lee Lozano, “Untitled,” c. 1962 man who feels this way, and I’m pleased that including ly mod- men in the show helps confirm feminism’s wider impact. e r n i s t Now about the Jewish aspects of this show. Part of the phase in the 1960s, the museum exhibited work by numerous Jewishness is geographic and social. This is admittedly, a New influential Jewish women artists, including Lee Krasner, Eva York-centric show. Though California was an important refuge Hesse, and Louise Nevelson, sometimes before they became for many East Coast women artists fleeing the machismo that had feminists, as in the case of Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro. infected the New York art scene, nearly all eventually returned to However, there was no theoretic structure to bring these artists New York by the late 1970s. Joyce Kozloff created a brilliant map together under the rubric of a Jewish feminist art. in 1996, on which she wrote the names of all the Jewish women The three realms — Jewish, feminist, and art — while coming artists, writers, and leaders she could think of on the streets of an together in pairs, gained momentum as a trio in the 1990s, and old New York map. Quite pointedly, the work becomes a picture achieved a stunning degree of institutionalization in the past 10 of a community, both real and imagined, of Jewish women artists years. In the last half decade, we have seen the establishment of dominating the New York landscape. And indeed, looking back the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn on certain feminist efforts, the Jewish participation runs high Museum [Lilith’s cover story in Summer, 2007]. This hosts the among the founders of important feminist art groups, from the newly restored exemplar of 1970s collaborative feminist art, Judy Feminist Art Program in 1970 to the Heresies collective in 1975 Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974 – 79). Around the same time, to Women’s Action Coalition in 1992 to Ridykeulous in 2006. the art historians Lisa E. Bloom and Gail Levin published major Another context is The Jewish Museum itself. During its decided- scholarly articles and books, including Bloom’s Jewish Identities in American Feminist Art. They argue, as Nancy Spero, “Victims, Holocaust,” 1968 Shifting the Gaze does also, that Jewish feminist artists’ very attitude and ethos — to heal the world using language and the rein- vention of form and daily life — is inherent to postmodern Jewish culture.